public lands collaborative residency

The Public Lands Collaborative Residency supports creative teams engaged in storytelling projects that have the potential to help re-imagine and shape the future of public lands in the United States.  

Rooted in the belief that storytelling is a powerful tool for stewardship, the residency offers space, time, and financial support for residents to develop a project about public lands that leads to public engagements such as readings, publications, workshops, or collaborative community projects.   

America’s public lands span more than 600 million acres of mountains, deserts, forests, and shorelines. From iconic National Parks to remnant prairies, from beloved recreation areas to critically important wildlife refuges, these lands are one of the largest shared experiments in collective stewardship on Earth.  

Public lands remind us that democracy extends beyond human communities to include the soils, waters, and species with whom we share this continent. These lands are living systems and civic institutions, shaped by the push and pull between conservation and exploitation, recreation and restoration, and legacies of dispossession and the promise of shared stewardship. In this ever-shifting context, every trail, forest, and canyon can become a site of negotiation and debate. The stakes are high.  

In a time of ecological and cultural transformation, these lands call us to rethink stewardship — not as ownership or control, but as an ongoing conversation across generations, disciplines, and cultures. Public lands invite questions about who belongs, who decides, and what values guide our shared future.  

During the Public Lands Collaborative Residency, we invite residents to explore questions like: How does caring for the land reflect how we care for one another? How does caring for and managing these lands reflect who we are and who we aspire to be?  How do public lands shape our cultural identity and our sense of what is possible in a changing world? How can collaborative inquiry across disciplines help us imagine alternative futures for public lands? 

The residency takes place at a cabin on a 70-acre nature reserve that reflects a long-standing commitment to shared stewardship. Residents are invited to be in relationship with the land as both refuge and inquiry site while they reflect, ask questions, and shape their collaborative work.